This application claims priority from Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-015139, filed Jan. 25, 2000, the contents of which are incorporated hereinto by this reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for creating melody data having a forward-syncopated rhythm pattern, and a machine readable medium containing program instructions for realizing such an apparatus and a method using a computer system, and more particularly to an apparatus and a method capable of creating a melody having a forward-syncopated rhythm pattern from rhythm pattern samples without syncopation by forward-shifting a note position or positions in terms of time to realize advanced beating of a note or notes. The notes in the modified rhythm pattern are given respective note pitches to establish a melody. The skeleton notes in the rhythm pattern, i.e. notes of primary importance from a rhythmic point of view are given skeleton pitches, while the non-skeleton notes in the rhythm pattern, i.e. notes of secondary importance from a rhythmic point of view are given non-skeleton pitches. The advanced beating of a note makes a skeleton note which plays an important role in syncopation. The invention is applicable in various kinds of electronic musical apparatuses such as an electronic musical instrument, an automatic music composing apparatus, and a computer-system-configured music composing apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In music, a melody consists of notes respectively having note pitches and note durations and being aligned in a rhythmic pattern with respect to time progression. A rhythm is typically noticed or perceived as the repetition of regular occurrences of strong beats (including semi-strong beats) or down beats and weak beats or up beats, defining a meter. An alignment of the note beating time positions with various note durations (spans between the adjacent note beating positions) makes a rhythm pattern. The notes locating at the strong beats (including semi-strong beats) takes an important role from a rhythmic point of view, and may be termed as skeleton notes or primary notes, while the notes locating at the weak beats takes a less important role from a rhythmic point of view, and may be termed as non-skeleton notes (may be called xe2x80x9cflesh notesxe2x80x9d in contrast to xe2x80x9cskeleton notesxe2x80x9d) or secondary notes.
In the conventional apparatuses and methods for creating a melody, the skeleton notes in a rhythm pattern are detected by a particular detection process. For example, the detection logic is that if there is a note at the position of a strong beat (e.g. the first and the third beat in the case of the quadruple meter), the note is detected as being a skeleton note, while if there is no note at the very position of a strong beat, a note which is close (ahead or behind) to the strong beat position is detected as being a skeleton note. The detection logic, therefore, is not simple. Further, according to the conventional logic, skeleton notes cannot be located freely according to the user""s intention.
Among the melodies of the recent musical pieces, there are considerably many melodies having a forward-syncopated rhythm in which some notes are played a little bit earlier than the normal beat positions by forward-shifting the beating time of the note, i.e. by advance beating of the note. With the conventional technology of creating melodies, however, rhythm patterns are prepared and processed by the unit of measure (measure by measure), that is, rhythm patterns of the length of a measure or two (or more) are stored in the rhythm pattern data-base and pattern pieces are selected for the processing. Thus, the forward syncopation can be realized within a measure by employing a forward-shifted note or notes. But the forward syncopation cannot be realized over the adjacent measures (i.e. bridging the measures), and therefore the top note of a measure cannot be made a forward shifted note or forward syncopated note, as there is no note available for the forward syncopation processing before the top note within a measure.
It is, therefore, a primary object of the present invention to provide a novel type of melody creating apparatus and method, and a machine readable medium containing a program therefor capable of creating a melody in which skeleton notes can be arbitrarily nominated according to the user""s intention without the need of a complicated algebraic logic for the detection of skeleton notes from among the notes constituting a given rhythm pattern. It is also an object of the present invention to provide a novel type of melody creating apparatus and method, and a machine readable medium containing a program therefor capable of creating a melody in which the top note in a measure can be forward-shifted to invade the end portion of the preceding measure. It is collectively an object of the present invention to create a melody having an abundance of rhythmic variety.
According to the present invention, the object is accomplished by providing a musical apparatus for creating melody data comprising: a rhythm pattern providing device which provides rhythm pattern data containing skeleton notes and non-skeleton notes; a note pick-out device which selectively picks out skeleton notes and non-skeleton notes; a skeleton note pitch providing device which provides note pitches for the skeleton notes; a skeleton note pitch imparting device which imparts the skeleton note pitches selectively to the picked-out skeleton notes, respectively; and a non-skeleton note pitch imparting device which imparts note pitches selectively to the non-skeleton notes, respectively. The rhythm pattern providing device may be a storage device which stores the rhythm pattern data containing skeleton notes and non-skeleton notes. The storage device may store skeleton indexes indicating which notes in the rhythm pattern are skeleton notes individually. Thus, the skeleton notes can be arbitrarily nominated according to the user""s intention without the need of a complicated algebraic logic for the detection of skeleton notes from among the notes constituting a given rhythm pattern.
According to the present invention, the object is further accomplished by providing a musical apparatus for creating melody data comprising: a rhythm pattern providing device which provides rhythm pattern data representing a plurality of rhythm pattern pieces, each containing notes aligned on a time axis; a melody condition providing device which provides conditions for defining a melody to be created; a rhythm pattern selecting device which selects rhythm pattern pieces according to the conditions; a rhythm pattern string creating device which connects the selected rhythm pattern pieces, ties the notes at the connected portion of the rhythm patterns to realize a forward-shifted beating of note, thereby creating a length of rhythm pattern string having a forward syncopation feeling, and a pitch imparting device which imparts note pitches to individual notes in the length of rhythm pattern string. Thus, the top note in a measure can be forward-shifted to invade the end portion of the preceding measure.
According to the present invention, the object is further accomplished by providing a musical apparatus for creating melody data comprising: a rhythm pattern providing device which provides rhythm pattern data representing a plurality of rhythm pattern pieces, each containing notes aligned on a time axis, the notes being skeleton notes and non skeleton notes from a musical point of view; a melody condition providing device which provides conditions for defining a melody to be created; a chord progression providing device which provides a chord progression for a melody to be created; a rhythm pattern selecting device which selects rhythm pattern pieces according to the conditions; a rhythm pattern string creating device which connects the selected rhythm pattern pieces, ties the notes at the connected portion of the rhythm patterns to realize a forward-shifted beating of note, thereby creating a length of rhythm pattern string having a forward syncopation feeling; a note pick-out device which selectively picks out skeleton notes and non skeleton notes; a skeleton note pitch providing device which provides note pitches for the skeleton notes based on the conditions and the chord progression, a skeleton note pitch imparting device which imparts the skeleton note pitches selectively to the picked-out skeleton notes, respectively; and a non-skeleton note pitch providing device which provides note pitches for the non-skeleton notes based on the conditions and the chord progression, a non-skeleton note pitch imparting device which imparts note pitches selectively to the non-skeleton notes, respectively. The rhythm pattern pieces may contain information about note lengths, so that the rhythm pattern selecting device may select rhythm pattern pieces containing the information about note lengths. Alternatively, the rhythm pattern pieces may not contain information about note lengths, so that the rhythm pattern selecting device may select rhythm pattern pieces not containing information about note lengths, and the rhythm pattern string creating device may provide information of a note length covering the tied notes in creating the length of rhythm pattern string. The note pick-out device may pick out the note of the forward-shifted beating at the connected portion of the rhythm patterns as a skeleton note of the latter of the connected rhythm patterns. As the skeleton pitches are created based on the chord progression, the created melody has a clear and distinct melodic feeling with a stable backbone.
According to the present invention, the object is further accomplished by providing a musical apparatus for creating melody data comprising: a rhythm pattern providing device which provides rhythm pattern data representing a plurality of rhythm pattern pieces, each containing notes aligned on a time axis, the rhythm pattern pieces including rhythm patterns subjectable to forward syncopation processing and rhythm patterns not subjectable to forward syncopation processing; a forward syncopation designating device which selectively designates whether the forward syncopation processing is to take place, a rhythm pattern selecting device which selects the rhythm patterns subjectable to forward syncopation processing when the forward syncopation designating device designates the forward syncopation processing; a rhythm pattern string creating device which connects the selected rhythm patterns subjectable to forward syncopation processing when the forward syncopation processing is designated; a forward syncopation processing device which executes the forward syncopation processing to the connected rhythm patterns, thereby creating a length of rhythm pattern string involving forward syncopation; and a pitch imparting device which imparts note pitches to individual notes in the length of rhythm pattern string. Thus, a user can arbitrarily select a desired rhythm pattern pieces and realize advanced beating of a note or notes at any intended measures very easily, there by widening the musical feeling of the created melody.
As will be understood from the above description about the musical apparatus for creating melody data, a sequence of steps each performing the operational function of each of the structural element modules of the melody data creating apparatus will constitute an inventive method for creating melody data according to the spirit of the present invention.
Further as will be understood from the above description about the apparatus and the method for creating melody data, a storage medium containing a program executable by a computer system, which program comprising program modules for executing a sequence of the processes each performing the operational function of each of the structural element modules of the above melody creating apparatus or performing each of the steps constituting the above melody creating method will reside within the spirit of the present invention.
As will be apparent from the description herein later, some of the structural element modules of the present invention are configured by a computer system performing the assigned functions according to the associated programs. They may of course be hardware structured discrete devices performing the same functions.
The present invention may take form in various components and arrangement of components including hardware and software, and in various steps and arrangement of steps. The drawings are only for purposes of illustrating a preferred embodiment and processes, and are not to be construed as liming the invention.